Ryan served up chunkloads of the red meat the Tampa crowd was starving for -- particularly after Chris Christie's belly-flop-a-palooza Tuesday.

Overlook the inconvenient truth that the vice-presidential candidate's idol, Ayn Rand, was a fire-breathing, pro-abortion atheist, or that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops assailed his iconic budget plan.

Ryan deftly played up his conservative Catholic cred while defusing any audience discomfort with Romney's Mormonism.